


Trust Takes Time, And Answers Aren’t Always Easy

by aeruh



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SHEITH - Freeform, my first Sheith fic actually so we’ll see how this goes, there’s blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 19:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15757935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeruh/pseuds/aeruh
Summary: Keith is an adopted son of the Empire’s royal family. He doesn’t know why, but he doubts it was done out of the goodness of their hearts. One thing he is sure of is this: he’s half-Galra, and the other half is unknown.Or at least, it was until he’s dragged to the arena and sees their newest Champion.Keith has questions he wants answered. But he isn’t going to get them easily.





	Trust Takes Time, And Answers Aren’t Always Easy

The robes were warm and heavy, and Keith hated them.

To be fair, Keith hated most things. He hated the purple lights that always glowed overhead, and the food he was served that always tasted too gamey. He hated the way everyone whispered about him when they thought he couldn’t hear, or didn’t care if he could.

He hated the arena. He hated how the cheers of the spectators hurt his ears and left him with headaches for the rest of the day. He hated that the smell of blood completely soaked the air and left a metallic tang on his tongue. 

He hated watching the killings.

But sandwiched between Lotor and the serving boy, Keith knew it was impossible to get away. That didn’t stop him from glancing from side to side though, searching for potential escape routes. As usual, there were none. Either he would be stopped by Zarkon—er, his _father,_ or the serving boy would try to hold him up, or Lotor would grab onto his arm to keep him still. He didn’t put it past Haggar to use some sort of dark magic to stop him, either.

And of course, even if by some sort of impossible feat Keith _was_ able to sneak away, the guards would stop him. Or a spectator. There would be more rumors in the halls about Keith—adopted prince of Emperor Zarkon, the pathetic half-blooded Galra with a temper no one could handle—was too squeamish for a little bloodletting. Keith faced enough ridicule just for existing. He didn’t want to tempt fate further than he had to. 

That didn’t mean he had to enjoy this, though. He didn’t bother to hide his contempt, and scowled down at the dirt-packed floor of the arena with his nose wrinkled in disgust. 

Lotor saw his expression. “Is something wrong, brother?” he asked. The words may have sounded concerned enough, but Keith saw the teasing glitter in his eyes.

“Nothing,” Keith responded shortly. 

“I know you well enough to know that there is always something on your mind.”

Keith huffed and slouched in his seat. The action caused locks of black hair to fall in his face and partially cover his view. “I just don’t want to be here.” It wasn’t a lie.

With a chuckle, Lotor let one heavy hand rest on Keith’s shoulder. It was probably meant to be comforting, but to him it just felt like dead weight. An anchor to keep him from leaving. 

“It will be over soon enough. Father will let you run wild through the halls before you know it.”

“He would flay me alive and leave me for a hungry yupper if I did that,” Keith said. “And these last _vargas._ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lotor withdrew his hand. “I’ve heard rumors. They say the arena has a new Champion these days. If he’s as good as everyone is claiming, this spectacle will be over before it even begins.”

This didn’t interest Keith in the slightest. “That’s cool.” 

The arena had seen many champions. Some of them lasted days, some weeks—there was never a shortage of them. But in the end, it was all the same. They were killed and another would be waiting eagerly in the shadows to take their place. There was something different about the way Lotor spoke, though. “Champion” wasn’t just a word he was throwing around. This time it was a title. 

“This one is a new species. The druids have never seen his kind before.”

“Haggar’s henchmen deal with lots of new species,” Keith grunted. “Doesn’t make this one special.”

Though Keith stared at the empty arena, from the corner of his eye he could see Lotor give him an odd look. 

“If you say so.”

Even before Keith and his family took their seats, the stadium was crowded. Now it was packed to the point of overflowing. How anyone was able to move around to get anywhere was a complete mystery to him. Arena fights always drew in the masses, but Keith couldn’t recall it ever being this bad.

 _Must be the new champion,_ he thought. _Everyone wants to see him kill._

The thought didn’t sit well in his stomach.

It was no secret that the Galra were a proud race; they were strong and resilient, and they knew how to attack their opponents right where it counted. The Galra knew how to take control and how to keep it. And the process never let them walk away without dirtying their hands. 

Most of their species carried this knowledge with pride—at least those who lived their lives in the starships, where war and battles were as common as the midday meal. Violence was a pastime. It was a part of life. You either embraced it, or you were an outcast. 

Keith knew where he stood. The others knew it, too, even if they never said it to his face. 

_The Emperor’s adopted son is afraid of a little blood._

_That’s no surprise. We all know how he is._

_At least Lotor is Zarkon’s own son._

Over the years, Keith had learned to tune most of it out. But sometimes, like today, he was so aware of everyone else that it felt like he was drowning.

Keith was pulled out of his own miserable thoughts by Lotor learning down to speak to him. 

“Here he comes, brother. Are you paying attention?”

Keith wasn’t, because he could hardly focus on Lotor’s words, even with them right in his ear. All around them the crowd had raised their voices to yell and cheer, throwing their fists up in the air. As Keith looked around, they began to chant.

 _“Cham-pi-on! Cham-pi-on! Cham-pi-on!_ ”

With each syllable, the crowd shook their fists. Some stomped their feet, making the stadium thud. Whoever this was, they must have liked him—a lot. Their excitement was contagious, and Keith found himself clenching the arm of his chair and leaning forward in an attempt to get a better look. 

_If he has them this riled up, his impressive must he be?_

The chanting dissolved into wordless yells as a figure detached itself from the shadows, and entered the arena below them all.

Keith’s first thought was, _He’s smaller than I thought he’d be._

His second thought was, _...he looks like me._

Not identically, of course. But their features were remarkably similar.

The only hair Keith could see was at the top of the champion’s head. For the most part it was black, like Keith’s, but the forelock was a stark white. No fur covered the rest of his body; just skin, like Keith. From where he was sitting, it looked like the Champion’s was pale, but in the sickly way. The way that said he hadn’t seen sun in much too long. That could be said about most of the prisoners, though. 

Keith stared; he couldn’t help it. In all his years of life, never, not once, had he seen another being that resembled himself so closely. There was no purple on the champion, no yellow eyes, no trademarks that screamed _Galra_ to the universe. Keith found himself bringing a hand up to his own face. His fingers rested right below his own eyes, where the only purple on himself could be found ringing his pupil. 

“What species is he?”

Keith didn’t realize he’d said the words aloud, but over the cheering, Lotor answered him anyway. “I told you, his kind is new to us. But when the druids interrogated him, he said he was ‘human.’”

 _Human._ It was a word that should have felt unfamiliar on his tongue, but when Keith mouthed it silently, it felt like it belonged. 

_Human._

He had to know more.

But before he could get any answers to the questions that plagued his mind every moment of his life, Keith had to watch the Champion compete in the arena, and take a life to spare his own for another day. Though it seemed like the Champion had been around for a while, the possibility of losing was always there. Keith supposed that it wasn’t so much a _possibility_ as it was an _inevitability._

He desperately hoped that today wasn’t the day it became true. 

——

The arena games—if they could be called that—were long. 

Keith knew how it went. The Champion was there for all of them, of course. In the first round, they had him set up against the fresher prisoners. The ones who had only been there for a handful of days, who were still scared and confused and unaccustomed. The ones who had probably never seen blood spilled before, much less been the ones spilling it. 

While Keith watched, the guards pushed a prisoner out to the arena. They were dressed like the Champion, in the standard dark-violet uniform tattered from use. This one was much smaller than the Champion; shorter, slimmer, weaker. And they were terrified.

Keith watched as the Champion looked his opponent—if they could even be called that—over, taking in their size and strength and weaknesses. Then he gripped the sword he had been equipped with, braced himself, and attacked. 

The Champion brought the sword in an upward arc. The metal gleamed for a tick from the lights overhead, red soaked into the dirt ground, and the other prisoner fell. 

The first round was always the shortest.

Even though the Champion was unscathed, he dropped to his knees at the prisoner’s side and lowered his head. Keith frowned; what was he doing? Usually the survivor would yell in a sort of barbaric cry of victory. Keith wasn’t used to this… this… whatever the Champion was doing.

If Keith was being honest with himself, he would say it looked almost like the Champion was… mourning.

Before long the guards entered the arena. Two of them brought the Champion to his feet and held him in place while another dragged the fallen prisoner away. The Champion never bothered to look up. By his side, the sword lay on the ground and was stained red. Keith thought, for just a second, that maybe he could make a move to arm himself against the guards, but it never happened. 

Instead he waited until the guards retreated, and the next prisoner was dragged out. Round two was about to begin.

The next five passed in much the same way. Because Keith had seen enough of these, he knew that _ideally_ each round was supposed to get harder. The prisoners set up against the Champion were meant to be stronger, more skilled, and experienced. The difficulty should build up each time the Champion went on to the next round. 

But none of it seemed to faze him. He won each fight with ease. It was like nothing Keith had ever seen before.

Keith couldn’t help but notice that each time the Champion won, he would sink to the ground and remain there until the guards dragged him up again. It was almost like a ritual. There was no pride in his actions. 

That didn’t seem to bother any of the spectators. They _loved_ him. Each time the Champion advanced on to the next fight, the cheers rose louder than before. Keith didn’t think that was possible. 

_As long as there’s killing, I guess it doesn’t matter to them,_ Keith thought bitterly. 

At the end of the sixth round, the opponent lay unmoving on the ground and the Champion was kneeling at their side. The crowd roared; they were throwing _flowers_ onto the arena floor, like the Champion was a performer and not forced to kill for their entertainment. 

Eventually the guards returned and took the Champion away. Spectators milled around the stadium for a while, talking almost themselves. Some stayed longer than others, but in the end they all left. Keith remained in his seat alongside his adopted family, as usual. Part of it was just for show, but most of the reason was for security. It’s easy to try to assassinate the Emperor in a crowd of people, where you could go unseen. 

As they were escorted from the stadium, Lotor walked along next to Keith. 

“So,” the older prince said simply, “what did you think?”

“I want to see him,” Keith said, lowly so that Zarkon or Haggar couldn’t hear.

Lotor simply chuckled. “I expected as much.” 

—— 

Lotor and his personal guard came for Keith when the lights of the ship were dimmed and they entered the night cycle. There was a brief knock on his door, Keith looked up from the data tablet he had been reading. 

“Come in.”

Keith’s brother entered with the guard behind him. He eyed the armored Galra lingering in the doorway with suspicion.

“I thought this was going to be a secret?” Keith asked with a raised eyebrow.

“And it will be, I assure you,” Lotor told him. “Not a word of this will go beyond the three of us. Korzak is my own personal guard, and with me at all times.” 

“Creepy.” Keith eyed Korzak, who stared back. Or at least, Keith _thought_ he was staring back. It was impossible to tell with those helmets all the soldiers wore. 

Lotor crossed his arms and leaned against Keith’s desk. “For you, I’m sure it is. But Father’s ordered him to accompany me everywhere. Speaking of, didn’t he assign a guard to _you_ as well?”

It took Keith a moment to remember. “...Yeah. But I paid him to leave me alone.”

“Typical.”

Keith was getting tired of the conversation being turned towards him. He tossed the tablet across the room, where it landed on the bed. Stretching his arms above his head, he stood. “Are we doing this, or not?”

“A promise is a promise. I’ll take you to him,” Lotor said, gesturing towards the door he just walked through. “The only one holding us back is yourself.” 

Sometimes Keith could endure Lotor’s speeches. Sometimes they made him want to punch Lotor in the face. Tonight, Keith was leaning more towards the second option. 

He grabbed his cloak and headed out the door anyway, with Lotor and Korzak following behind him. Lotor walked on ahead of them once they got into the hall, and Keith wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, hiding his face under the hood. Given that they were all confined to a ship, it was impossible for Zarkon’s brainless soldiers and the crew to not know everyone. And Keith didn’t exactly do the best at blending in, given his… non-Galra features. 

(Keith had to remind himself not to say _human_ features.)

The cloak made it a little easier for him to go unrecognized. The less people knew about his interest in Zarkon’s bloody games, the better. But Lotor walked with confidence and his head held high. 

Keith rolled his eyes. How Lotor could walk around the ship with that much pride always astounded him. Everyone knew what Zarkon thought of his Altean son. 

_Don’t know why they still chose to take me in,_ Keith mused. But he wasn’t so naive to think it was out of love or kindness. If anything, it was just some sort of failed publicity stunt. He would probably never get the answer; years ago Keith decided that as long as they didn’t disown him or throw him out of the airlock, he would stay right where he was. 

It’s better than the life he had before. 

While Keith was busy getting himself lost in his thoughts, Lotor had lead the tiny group down to the brig, where the prisoners were kept. He stopped at the heavily locked entrance door. Down there was significantly darker; lights were sparse, and the ones that were built into the ceiling were dim. Shadows seeped from the corners and danced around Keith’s feet. He drew the cloak closer around himself like he was trying to keep out the cold. 

Two guards stood on either side of the metal door, armed with guns. They looked Keith and the others over, hardly sparing Keith a glance. Having Lotor as a guide came with few privileges; if anyone was in his company, the guards couldn’t care less who it was. 

“Prince Lotor,” the guard on the left said. 

“A pleasure,” Lotor responded. “We would like to enter, if you don’t mind.” 

The guards didn’t mind, apparently; the one on the right held his palm against the scanner on the wall, and the door creaked open. It was only slightly unsettling. 

“Thank you. This way, now.” Lotor nodded to the guards and proceeded to walk through the doorway, waving his hand for Keith and Korzak to follow. Keith avoided making eye contact with the Galra in the hall as he trailed after the older prince. 

It was just as dark in the brig as it was in the long corridor they came from. They were surrounded by cells; every direction Keith glanced, there prisoners in threadbare uniforms, dirty and (in most cases) bruised or bleeding. Keith passed dozens of different species. Most he knew, but there were some he couldn’t recognize. 

He knew how to identify which ones had only recently been stolen away from their homes; these were the ones that cried and shook, trying to keep as far away from the cell door as they could. Those that had been around longer but had yet to break stared back angrily and stubbornly at Keith when he looked them over. There was a way that they held themselves; proudly, almost. Or at least as proud as one could look while locked behind bars.

 _You aren’t any better than me,_ their stances said. _You should be locked up, too._

Keith couldn’t hold the stares of those that looked back at him. _I know,_ was what his gaze locked on the floor said back. _I know, and I’m sorry._

The prisoners that were injured had been crudely attended to. They were bandaged with dirty cloth, stained red. By the way the brig smelled, Keith could assume that most of the wounds were infected. 

Keith felt something churning. He didn’t know if it was horror or nausea, but it left him fighting not to double over. These people were suffering and _dying_ down here in the shadows every day, while Keith slept in his comfortable bed and spent his days staring at the stars through the viewing portal. Their plight made his own struggles seem so much smaller. 

It was sick. All of it was sick. 

Keith wanted to burn the place down.

He didn’t see Lotor coming to a halt towards the end of the hall, and ended up running right into him. 

_“Ow!”_

When Lotor turned around to look at him, Keith was rubbing the bridge of his nose as if it would help him ease the pain. Lotor’s armor, which he wore so often it might as well have been a casual outfit, was _hard._

“I know your eyesight is not nearly as good as ours is in the dark, but do please try to pay attention, dear brother.” 

There was a smirk on Lotor’s angular purple face, and for the second time that might, Keith wanted to punch him. His comfortable, easy smugness didn’t belong in a place where their own family was leaving people to rot and die.

“Why did we stop?”

“You asked to see the Champion,” Lotor said simply, and gestured to a prison cell to the right. “Well, there he is.” 

Keith’s eyes followed the direction Lotor’s hand was pointing. The cell was extremely unremarkable; if anything, the only exception was that this one held just a single prisoner, whereas most had anywhere from five to ten. 

The prisoner was huddled in the far corner of the cell, arms wrapped around his knees and head pressed against them. At the sound of their approach, however, he had tilted his head slightly to the left to get a look at the intruders. In the faint purple light, Keith could see a single gray eye trained on him. 

The Champion. So much closer than he had been in the arena.

Keith’s throat was suddenly very dry.

“Lotor,” he managed, “do you mind…”

“Of course not.” It seemed like he was always able to read Keith’s mind. “We’ll be waiting out in the hall. Take care not to stick your hand between the cell bars; you don’t want to get it bitten off.”

And with that, they left. Keith never looked away from the Champion locked up in the cell. He listened as footsteps faded away and for the sound of the door to close. It wasn’t until after that he began to speak. Or try to, anyway. 

“U-um, hi.”

Yes. A great way to start a conversation in any situation, even one where you were trying to introduce yourself to the arena’s famed prisoner.

“Are you here to interrogate me, too? I thought we were past that already.”

The voice took Keith by surprise. It wasn’t rough or harsh. His words, despite the clear bitterness in them, sounded warm to Keith’s ears. To cut it short, he liked it.

“N-no! It’s not like that!” Keith cleared his throat. “I just… I saw you. Fight. In the arena. I wanted to… to see… you.” 

Well, that sounded awkward. He was really making a great first impression. 

The Champion lifted his head, and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand.” 

There were questions waiting right on the tip of Keith’s tongue; what were humans like? There did they come from? Did they all look like the Champion?

But he suddenly became aware of his surroundings. Of who _he_ was; a Galra prince, not even full-blooded or a legitimate heir, who—to an extent—didn’t hide what he thought of the world he grew up in and didn’t care who knew. Who was currently slinking around in the prison brig in a cloak and exchanging words with one of the most dangerous people on the ship.

It was the perfect breeding grounds for a conspiracy. And while Keith’s heart bled for the others suffering around him, he was smart enough to know he couldn’t assume they weren’t going to rat him out to a passing guard for a chance at freedom. 

“Please,” Keith said, lowering his voice. “I—I just—I… I want to ask you something.”

His hands slowly crept up to grip the edges of his hood. Keith glanced from side to side to make sure no one was watching them directly. His anxiety demanded he keep the exchange as discreet as possible.

And then, slowly. He pulled the hood back. Just barely enough for his features to be visible.

“Jesus,” the Champion breathed. Keith didn’t understand what it meant, but it was probably some sort of human curse. “You’re one of us.” 

—— 

Lotor returned for him after only being gone for about fifteen dobashes. It wasn’t enough time. When he came into view, Keith left without saying much of a goodbye, and Lotor dropped in off in front of his room.

“So. How did it go?” Lotor asked.

Silence fell as Keith never replied. He looked away instead, fixing his sight on the door. It’s always easier when you don’t have to make eye contact. 

In front of him, Lotor sighed. “Well, then. I hope you got the answers you were looking for. If anyone asks, we were training. Don’t tell Father or Haggar where we really were.”

“Why?” 

With a turn of his heel, Lotor tossed the answer over his shoulder. “It’s always better to play it safe. Given your nature, I wouldn’t expect you to think of it first. Sleep well.”

He left with his ever-present guard, and then Keith was left alone in the hall. He entered his room and made sure the door was locked behind it, before throwing off the cloak and falling onto the bed.

The conversation he had in the brig rang in his ears, played over and over in his mind.

_“Jesus. You’re one of us. You’re—you’re human. How did you get here?”_

_Keith swallowed nervously. “I don’t know what that means. I’m half-Galra.”_

_The Champion got to his feet, keeping one hand pressed against the wall for support. Keith watched as he came forward and wrapped his hands around the cell bars._

_Now that they were a foot apart, Keith could take the time to look him over. The Champion was handsome—not in the traditional Galra way, but in his own way. He had an undercut, and the white forelock was a striking contrast with his black hair. A jagged scar ran across the bridge of his nose, the wound healed long ago. His eyes were stone-gray and he seemed to be doing the same thing Keith was._

_“H-half…” the Champion searched for words to say. “Half-Galra? How?”_

_Keith wrinkled is nose and he huffed. “How do you think? Human anatomy can’t be that different, if—”_

_“No, no. Not that. I just… my crew and I, our mission was to travel to Kerberos, a moon in our solar system. It was the furthest any human had traveled from Earth, and our home planet never detected signs of alien life. So how…”_

How do you exist? _Though the Champion never said those words, Keith could hear them well enough._

_“I wish I knew,” Keith said mirthlessly._

_“You came here with Lotor,” the Champion said. His words were slow, like he was testing the strength of a glass floor before putting all his weight on it. “Do you… are you friends with him?”_

_“We’re brothers. Technically. His family—they adopted me when I was younger.”_

_In an instant the Champion’s expression changed. His eyes were guarded, and Keith couldn’t blame him. They knew nothing about each other. For all the Champion knew, Keith could be just as bad as Lotor. As Zarkon and his magical parasite and her followers._

_Keith took a deep breath and brought the hood back up over his head. “Please. I—I just want to know more… about where you came from.”_

_In response, the Champion’s words were sharp as glass and burned like acid. “Why should I tell you anything about my home planet? Are you just going to turn around and run to your father after to tell him everything? I have family there. Friends. People I love. Interrogate me if you want, but don’t lie to me and say this isn’t what it is. I fight because your people force me to. I…I_ kill _because you force me to. Don’t offer me kind words when they’re laced with poison.”_

_His speech left Keith standing there with his mouth wide open._

_“No. No! You don’t get it. That isn’t what I meant.” Keith was getting frustrated. He could feel it burning in his chest. Why didn’t the Champion_ understand? _Why couldn’t Keith put it any better?_

_“I don’t even know who you are. I’m sorry, but you can’t expect me just to trust you. Maybe… maybe I would have, once. But I can’t afford that. We don’t have that luxury down here. Not anymore. Sorry.”_

_Could Keith blame him, really? No. He couldn’t. Once again, the stark differences between Keith’s life and the lives of the prisoners locked up in the dark were all the more apparent. Keith hated this place._

_Keith was a stranger, and not only that, he was a stranger from the royal family that was responsible for keeping him there. So the Champion couldn’t trust him…_

_...Not yet, at least._

_Keith never was good at backing down. If he had a goal, he would reach it. This time didn’t have to be any different._

_“My name is Keith,” he said. “In about three lunar cycles, I’ll be nineteen. I’m half-Galra. The other half is a big blank spot. I didn’t even have a word for it until I saw you fight in the arena today and found the name of your species. You’re the only link I have to answering my questions.”_

_The Champion stared at him, his eyes wide and surprised. This probably wasn’t the reaction he was expecting._

_And then, slowly, the Champion started to smile. It was small. Just a hint, really. Like he forgot how to and the muscles didn’t want to work right._

_“My name… is Takashi Shirogane. But… all of my friends called me Shiro.”_

Shiro. 

Keith rolled over onto his side and stared out of the viewing portal. Stars glittered all around them, so many and so far apart. Somewhere out there was Earth. Keith was going to find it.

_I like “Shiro” a lot better than “Champion.”_

**Author's Note:**

> So, a few things:
> 
> —the timeline is different in this AU than it is in the show.  
> —as of yet, Shiro doesn’t have the Galra arm  
> —I know Krolia is going to make an appearance later in the fic  
> —I had a hell of a time trying to come up with a title for this thing, and in google docs it’s still called “can I get a fuckin uhhhhh Sheith royalty au” but I couldn’t just go with that, now could I  
> —I use too many italics


End file.
